


Science Sufficiently Advanced

by randi2204



Series: Steampunk!Seven [17]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randi2204/pseuds/randi2204
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vin's not too sure he likes the direction Josiah's inventions are taking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Science Sufficiently Advanced

**Author's Note:**

  * For [farad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** These boys belong to MGM, Mirisch and Trilogy, not me. Woes.

All those things Josiah did in his workshop, he called science.

 

When he put together that thing that threw the dynamite further than that old slingshot, he talked about _angle_ and _trajectory_ and _force_ , but that wasn’t anything that Vin didn’t already know from hunting with the Comanche.  He just... didn’t think about it like that.  To him, it was more like _is there any wind_ and _how far away is it_ and _how far back do I need to pull to kill it._

 

When Josiah accidently blew up his own laboratory and they pulled him from the wreckage, coughing and singed, covered with soot, Vin had kind of hoped that’d be the end of it.  If he didn’t have a space to work, then maybe Josiah would give up on those crazy things he’d drawn up plans for… and if Vin happened to throw those plans into the fire instead of saving them... well, he’d done things against Josiah’s wishes before and it’d turned out all right.

 

After the explosion, Josiah took over the church, started building a new workshop underneath, right in town.  At least his other workshop hadn’t been close to anything else, but this… if things continued the way everyone was afraid they would, this was going to put the townspeople in danger.

 

So the six of them decided that Josiah needed a minder, someone who might be able to curb his tendency to blow things up.  Five of them had decided the best choice would be JD.

 

Five of them were wrong.

 

Suddenly Josiah had an _assistant_ , someone who understood how his mind worked, whose mind worked the same way.  At first, JD told them when it was likely that something Josiah was working on might go south, and for a while, there weren’t as many things going boom… but when they did, they went boom in spectacular fashion.  But then things started to get out of hand.

 

The gun – well, the gun was all right, it was almost _normal_ , even though it kicked like a mule and gave him a ringing headache.  But it was still familiar, still something that Vin could look at and say, _yep, it’s a gun._

 

But then Josiah drew up the plans for the Iron Horse, and even though it _looked_ like a horse, it didn’t _act_ like one, and he knew Chris felt the same way about it, that if that was _science_ and _progress_ , he could do without them both, thank you.

 

After the Iron Horse failed (and nearly killed JD to boot, and Vin couldn’t help but be glad that Nathan had insisted on being present for the test because otherwise it didn’t bear thinking about), Josiah started working on other things, continuously, feverishly, as if JD really _had_ been holding him in check.  Another version of the Iron Horse, a flying washtub (a _Whirlie Bird_ , Josiah called it), a dynamite powered cart… a light made of glass, something that didn’t need oil or wax or even a match to burn bright as a dozen lamps…

 

And with every new thing that sprang out of Josiah’s brain and came into being in his dark, hot, _noisy_ workshop, Vin felt that he was seeing less and less of Josiah’s _science_ in his creations, that there was something _else_ there.

 

In his time with the Comanche, Vin had learned more than how to hunt with a bow; he’d seen their rituals, come to believe in the things the shaman said about spirits that walked the earth.  The shaman had given him a magical pouch, an amulet to protect him from evil, and despite all that had happened to him, he reckoned the medicine bag did what it was supposed to, because he wasn’t dead yet.

 

The things Josiah did with metal and wires, with lightning in a jar, with clockwork and steam… those things weren’t natural.  They weren’t _right_.

 

When he became aware that Vin couldn’t read, couldn’t write down the poetry that lived in his soul, Josiah seemed sad at first, then suddenly excited, and he clapped Vin on the shoulder with a promise to help him, to fix what wasn’t broken.

 

A week later, he was trying to coax Vin to wear a cap made of wires, hooked up to a device that looked like nothing so much as a telegraph receiver and a roll of paper.  He said it could read thoughts.

 

To Vin, it wasn’t anything less than magic.  

 

Every time Josiah came up with something new, something that excited his inventor’s mind and heated up his inventor’s blood, Vin put his hand over his heart, right where the medicine bag was, and hoped like hell it was still strong enough to protect him.

 

***

February 11, 2013

**Author's Note:**

> For [farad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad)'s prompt for Steampunk!Seven "Vin, afraid the medicine bag might not be strong enough to protect him from Josiah’s new magics", and also for her birthday. Hope it was a happy one, hon!


End file.
